Youth Soccer Funtag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2014://12014-12-23T19:44:59ZMovable Type 3.2Alexi Lalas strikes a chord on foreign clubs coming to USAtag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2014://1.3102014-12-23T19:01:36Z2014-12-23T19:44:59Z"Make no mistake. This is a gold rush. This is a land grab." That's Alexi Lalas after being asked by The Guardian about foreign clubs -- such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Everton -- making ambitious moves into American youth soccer....Mike Woitalla
"Make no mistake. This is a gold rush. This is a land grab." That's Alexi Lalas after being asked by The Guardian about foreign clubs -- such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Everton -- making ambitious moves into American youth soccer.

By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

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That’s Alexi Lalas after being asked by The Guardian about foreign clubs -- such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Everton -- making ambitious moves into American youth soccer.

“U.S. soccer is littered with decades of people coming over with little more than an accent to their resume, and using the naivete we’ve had and the inexperience and lack of soccer history and culture to their advantage,” said Lalas.

Lalas strikes a chord with anyone who has spent a significant time in American youth soccer, whose free market nature has long attracted and enriched foreign firms and coaches regardless of whether they’re improving our game -- or just inflating its costs.

“Certainly while American coaches can learn from their curriculum and methods, I don’t think they have a magic bullet, or anything completely revolutionary,” said Lalas. “It’s a pretty simple game, and we often complicate it.”

There’s nothing wrong with some foreign influence. Soccer like cuisine is best when spiced up. Preferably, American soccer looks to countries and clubs with histories of producing successful and entertaining soccer. Bayern and Barcelona meet that criteria, and I have visited the youth programs of both clubs.

What impressed at Barcelona was predictable -- an emphasis from the early ages on individual skill and a philosophy that stresses attack-minded, possession soccer. I thought Bayern had a good strategy on developing central defenders. When it identifies a player as a candidate to excel at that position, he is played as a defensive midfielder at the youth level to develop all-around skills and game-reading acumen.

But the most profound differences between Barcelona or Bayern and youth soccer in the USA weren’t so much about training methods.

First of all, unlike their ventures into the USA, Barcelona and Bayern Munich don’t charge their kids at La Masia and Sabener Strasse. The youth coaches are judged more by how many players they move on than by victories. They field only one team at each age level and cut and replenish the squad each year.

Any player who arrives at either club has already been rated as among the very elite in the region, if not the country. We know Barcelona and Bayern coaches do a good job with the already exceptional players who’ve been delivered to them by an army of scouts. So coaching at those clubs greatly differs from the challenges faced by the vast majority of American youth coaches.

In fact, when it comes to coaching education for coaches at the grass-roots level, I have more trust in U.S. organizations than the foreign coaches who haven’t dealt with our unique youth soccer landscape.

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Ref, Can we talk?tag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2014://1.3112014-12-15T19:54:27Z2014-12-23T22:13:03ZBy Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider) Among the feedback we got from last week's column on referee abuse were those who pointed out that sometimes coaches do feel a legitimate need to communicate with the referee --...Mike WoitallaBy Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

Among the feedback we got from last week's column on referee abuse were those who pointed out that sometimes coaches do feel a legitimate need to communicate with the referee -- especially when the coaches believe their players' safety is at risk.

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I have over the years asked experienced refs: What's a reasonable way
for coaches to express their grievances to refs?

"It's basically down to approach and attitude. All referees are happy
to talk about the game at any convenient moment. A friendly approach
and polite comment or question will draw a similar response."

That came from Stanley Lover, the renowned international referee,
instructor, and author of several officiating books, who died in 2013.

I had given Lover the following scenario: What to do if their No. 6 is
throwing elbows at your No. 10?

Lover suggested the coach say, "A nice match, referee, but that young
Blue No. 10 is near to tears because of the rough play of the Red No.
6, particularly her flying elbows." Enough said, the ref has got the
point.

Lover stressed that coaches be aware of their body language: "An
aggressive movement; a menacing stance; a thrusting scowling face; a
sharp accusing question, will put the official on the defensive and
not invite an answer which satisfies either party."

"If there is a genuine concern, especially in the area of protecting a
player, it is acceptable to speak to the referee. It's all about the
approach. It's not screaming, or getting personal. ... The approach
should not be confrontational, boisterous, demonstrative -- and the
discussion should not be prolonged."

Brian Hall, former World Cup ref and four-time MLS Referee of the
Year, warned of a halftime talk when I queried him in a 2010 article:

"If a coach talks to the ref at halftime," Halls says, "what will the
other coach or the spectators think?"

Hall suggested a quiet word with the assistant referee on the near
side. A coach could say, in a positive manner, "Maybe you guys can
discuss that at halftime ..."

Also acceptable, said Hall, is if the referee comes near the coach
during the game -- perhaps at a throw-in or a free kick near the
sideline -- and the coach asks the referee to keep her eye out on
something, "in a professional, controlled, positive manner."

(Hall also strongly advocated coaches providing feedback on referees
to the league's assignors -- and not just when it's a complaint.)

Randy Vogt, the author of "Preventive Officiating" and Youth Soccer
Insider ref columnist, does believe halftime can be an appropriate
time for a coach to approach the referee at the youth level:

"The coach should then tell the opposing coach what was said so the
opposing coach does not believe his/her team is being accused of
anything. If both coaches believe the ref needs to call more fouls,
they can both approach the ref at halftime."

Everyone agrees coaches must not approach in anger.

"The coach needs to be calm throughout the conversation," says Vogt.
"Coach could say something like, 'I realize that you are trying your
best but there have been fouls that have not been whistled, the
challenges have become more robust because of this and I'm fearful
that somebody is about to get hurt. Could you please start calling
more fouls on both teams? I believe that would serve this game well.'

"The important thing is to ask for more fouls being whistled on both
teams. Otherwise, the ref could think that the coach is more
interested in winning the game than the safety of the players
especially if the coach says something like, 'Call more fouls on the
other team as they are a bunch of dirty players who are coached that
way!' That's definitely the wrong thing to say and only exacerbates
the situation."

If the situation occurs in the second half or early in the game, Vogt
suggests that in the older youth groups, the coach should ask the
captain to communicate the coach's concerns with the same civility he
recommends for the coaches.

If the kids are young and the coach cannot rely on a captain for
communication, Vogt aggrees with Hall that when play is near the bench
the coach can attempt to convey a message to the ref -- in a calm,
concise manner.

"The important thing is for the coach or captain to be pleasant and
the ref to receive the impression that he/she is more concerned about
the safety of all the players than simply winning the game," says
Vogt.

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Blaming the Ref Doesn't Worktag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2014://1.3122014-12-12T20:11:06Z2014-12-23T20:12:45ZBy Mike Woitalla (from SoccerAmerica.com) I've long believed that coaches lashing out at referees is a counter-productive practice. After reffing and ARing nearly 40 youth games in the last year -- and surveying other referees -- I'm even more sure...Mike WoitallaBy Mike Woitalla (from SoccerAmerica.com)

I've long believed that coaches lashing out at referees is a counter-productive practice. After reffing and ARing nearly 40 youth games in the last year -- and surveying other referees -- I'm even more sure of it.

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As a referee, you get a very good sense of the players’ mood because you see their faces up close.

What I’ve seen over and over again is how children react to getting screamed at by their coaches. You see the confidence drain out of them when they’re berated by the pacing, grumpy, angry adult on the sideline.

The common scenario is the momentum is going against the team, coaches get frustrated and through voice or body language send the message they’ve lost faith in their players. And the players respond, predictably, by being so self-conscious of their next move that things get even worse for their team.

I also see how the kids respond when they hear their coaches -- or parents -- scream at the referee.

Sometimes they start dissenting with words or gestures. I’ve seen this from kids as young as 9 after obvious fouls. I actually find this somewhat humorous because they look so silly in a cute childish way -- but then you wonder whether they might not end up believing their sloppy tackling is a proper way to play. Or that they’ll keep getting offside because the coach 50 yards away screamed at the AR who was actually in position to see the play.

The one that really gets my goat is when after a foul is called the coach yells at the player, “It’s OK, Johnny! You didn’t do anything wrong!” Do these guys actually think this is a clever way to circumvent the dissent rule? More importantly, they’re setting the kid up to keep making the same mistake.

I’ve been screamed at “How was that a foul?” from a coach 40 yards away from his player who pushed down an opponent with both hands from behind – which my AR, two yards away and I, 10 yards away, both witnessed clearly.

I’ve had a coach in one game scream at me “That’s a foul!” when her player tripped on the ball and "Let the kids play!" when her player threw an elbow into a chin. This coach was more than twice the distance away than I was on each incident.

I get the frustration of coaches when we do err. But refs at the very highest levels average a few mistakes per game – and somehow the man, woman, boy or girl who’s reffing your U-12s is going to be perfect?

The fact is that when the youth coach demonstrably questions the referee the players not only tend to get distracted, they are being handed an excuse for why they’re not succeeding.

As for the coaches who claim there’s a method to their madness, do they really believe that “riding the referee” is going to help their cause? That a person they’re abusing is somehow going to give their team the benefit of the doubt on the next close call?

Any referees worth their salt do not get sucked into making a makeup call and any coach who tries to win youth games by intimidating a referee shouldn’t be around kids’ soccer. (It is, of course, paramount that refs stifle coaches’ dissent immediately so to avoid any speculation that the coach is having an influence.)

I am happy to report from the many youth games I’ve reffed and observed in the past year, the coaches who abuse refs are in the minority. From the repeat offenders -- and I have heard paid coaches drop F-bombs at refs in front of 11-year-olds -- I believe there’s another reason for their disgraceful sideline theatrics: They want the parents who pay them to think it’s the refs' fault when their teams aren’t playing well.

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Your Kid is Going to Make Mistakestag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2014://1.3092014-10-01T07:40:25Z2014-12-23T19:00:19ZAn article I wrote for AYSO's PLAYSOCCER Magazine, Fall 2013: By Mike Woitalla Watch the world's best soccer players, like Lionel Messi or Marta, and you'll be amazed at how they control and stroke the ball while moving swiftly, feinting...Mike Woitalla
An article I wrote for AYSO's PLAYSOCCER Magazine, Fall 2013:

By Mike Woitalla

Watch the world's best soccer players, like Lionel Messi or Marta, and you'll be amazed at how they control and stroke the ball while moving swiftly, feinting with their body, improvising ways to elude defenders game after game — a combination of high skill and creativity.

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What if we could see these soccer stars playing when they were children? Messi, who today plays for FC Barcelona and is considered the greatest male player in the world, played in the streets of Rosario in his home country of Argentina. Marta, the world’s best women’s player, didn’t join a team until age 14, her prior soccer comprising of pickup games in the Brazilian village of Dois Riachos.

We’d see them lose the ball lots and lots while trying out moves. But they had the luxury of playing without adults around shouting at them to pass or moaning when their moves didn’t work. While mastering their brilliant dribbling skills, they had to fail thousands of times — yet never hesitating to try and try again.

When James Joyce said, “Mistakes are the portals of discovery,” he was talking about life in general. In sports, top coaches recognize that the fear of failure hinders athletes from excelling. “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything,” said basketball legend John Wooden.

On today’s youth soccer fields in America, parents watch their children closely, bringing with them that innate and powerful desire to see their children succeed. But we must not allow that well-intentioned ambition to blind us to the fact that for children to improve and enjoy the game, they must be afforded the freedom to explore it on their own terms.

“We all know that in the learning process, missteps or mistakes are the beginning foundation of building the stepping stones of developing,” says Dave Chesler, U.S. Soccer Director of Coaching Education.

Upon becoming U.S. Soccer’s Youth Technical Director, former U.S. World Cup captain Claudio Reyna traveled the world observing coaches at the clubs with the most successful youth programs.

“The coaches were guiding the training,” he says. “They were not controlling. They weren’t on top of the kids. They were not stopping the play for every mistake.

“When you first start coaching young players, you see so many things, because, yes, they make mistakes, and if you see a lot of mistakes, you want to correct a lot of mistakes. But these coaches were really letting the kids learn the game.”

A big challenge for American youth coaches who are guiding their players in an age-appropriate way — AYSO coaches are trained and certified for their teams’ age groups — is that parents may misinterpret their lack of interference. They may expect more instruction when in fact the coaches have correctly created an environment for a natural learning of the game. Parents who understand that kindergarteners aren’t taught trigonometry or forced to read Shakespeare may not have enough familiarity with soccer to gauge at what aptitude a player or team can be expected to play at a particular age group. They may also refer to the other sports that are unlike soccer.

“All of the American sports are coach-centric,” says Scott Gimple, AYSO’s Director of Development. “Te coaches call the plays. Te coaches call the defense. They send in the signal in all those sports. Soccer’s not that way.

“The other thing is that soccer is such a fluid game. It’s a game of mistakes. People are making decisions all the time, but it’s the best decision they can make in that split second. As parents, we want to control so we’re yelling from the sidelines like we would if we were watching baseball: ‘Trow it to first! … Trow it to second!’ … Giving them directions.”

That results in players not getting the chance to figure out how to make their own decisions, losing out on an opportunity to be creative and problem solve on their own.

“I was refereeing a U-12 girls’ game and there was corner kick,” Gimple says. “Te girl stopped and turned to her dad and said, ‘Dad, where do I go?’”

“We step in too quickly — trying to correct before the child even has chance to learn on his own,” Snyder says. “I use the analogy of when I’m driving in an unfamiliar city. I’m getting lost and driving all over. Eventually I get to where I was aiming for and by that time I know the city very well!”

Besides the fact that players are more likely to master the game if they’re not over-coached at the early stages of their development — soccer is their playtime, not a time to fear parental disappointment.

“I remember seeing a little girl make a mistake and start crying,” Gimple says. “Nobody necessarily yelled at her. But because she made the mistake she felt like she failed. So something was ingrained in her that taking that risk and making a mistake was something to cry about.

“There’s got to be a cultural change from parents hovering over the kids and trying to prevent them from making mistakes, wanting to do what they think is best for them by giving them instructions, pointing out obvious solutions that they can see, to help their kids be successful … What we want them to do is sit back and let their kids try something different and not necessarily succeed, and then try it again, and keep trying again until they are successful and have figured it out.

“It’s like giving a child a puzzle and telling them where to put the pieces because you don’t want them to make mistakes. When really what children do by trying different pieces of the puzzle, they learn how to put together a puzzle.”

“Parents should allow them to do that when they play a sport.”

(Mike Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, played AYSO soccer in Hawaii.)

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Why I Ref: A View from the Middletag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2014://1.3072014-05-01T06:15:07Z2014-05-01T06:34:50ZBy 9:30 last Saturday morning I had run more than three miles, earned $20, and had been in the middle of a bunch of kids thoroughly enjoying the beautiful game. By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)...Mike Woitalla
By 9:30 last Saturday morning I had run more than three miles, earned $20, and had been in the middle of a bunch of kids thoroughly enjoying the beautiful game.

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I’ve reffed five games in two weeks, earning enough money to pay for that device on my wrist that counts my steps and reveals how much exercise I’m getting.

The exercise is one of the great fringe benefits of reffing. But I particularly appreciate the close view I get of soccer played by children who never cease to entertain.

* After a 12-year-old goalkeeper kicks away a shot, her coach yells, “You can use your hands!” … And she shouts back, “I know. But I don’t want to!”

* In another girls rec game, the team that’s leading 3-0 at halftime lends a player to the short-handed trailing team for the second half. When she gets the ball she takes a hard shot at her new team’s goal. Fortunately it’s off target, and she says, “Sorry! It’s confusing!”

* Retreating to midfield for a goal kick, I hear one teammate say to another, “You think it will be a pizza party or ice cream?”

Being in the middle also puts one in good earshot of the parents and coaches. And in my last five games I’m delighted to report exemplary sideline behavior.

The exception was a mom screaming, after an innocuous challenge, “Push her back when she does that to you!” I did notice she seemed to regret her outburst as the other parents stared at her.

I’ve been reffing teenage rec games and preteen “competitive” games, where I’m seeing more and more coaches trying to encourage good soccer.

In a U-10 competitive game, the team that gave up an early goal and would lose by a big score kept, during the entire game, trying to pass out of the back, using the goalkeeper like a field player to relay the ball from one outside back to the other. The coach never got upset when things broke down. And he kept encouraging his players despite the risk of this approach.

The biggest chore of reffing seems to be the pregame.

No matter what level, there’s always the process of checking in the players. More difficult with the girls than the boys because of the jewelry. Twice in one weekend, a girl says she can’t take off her earring because it’s a stud for a newly pierced lobe.

The coach and the girl make a plea. I’m not sure exactly how dangerous earrings are, but I know I’m not supposed to make exceptions. Us refs have to have a united front, because we constantly get the excuse that, “The last ref said it was OK.”

I say, “Look, if I say it’s OK and then next time you tell a ref that I said it was OK, I’m going to get in trouble.” So she says, “I won’t tell them your name!”

And why do so many kids nowadays have bands on their wrists?

The whole checking in process can take some time. I’m usually always at the field at least 30 minutes before kickoff. But last week I had one of those days with games at different fields and traffic issues that got me there just 15 minutes before kickoff.

It was a competitive game early in the spring season and apparently there have been registration snafus here in Northern California.

By the time I’d gotten the paperwork and player cards from both teams, I had eight (!) sheets of paper in my hand, two sets of player cards, along with loose individual player passes.

This was for an 8-v-8 game of U-10s. I had “Temporary Official Rosters” and “Official Match Report” forms from both teams. We had kids who seemed to fear taking off their friendship bracelets might actually severe those friendships.

But when I had both teams lined up on the field, I was relieved that it was exactly 1 p.m. – the scheduled kickoff time. I blew the whistle. Nothing happened.

The little girl at the center spot looked up and said, “There’s no ball.”

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Tony Meola: Young players are more sophisticated than evertag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2014://1.3082014-04-21T06:31:55Z2014-05-01T06:34:10ZInterview by Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider) This year marks the 20th anniversary of the USA hosting the 1994 World Cup – a good time to check in with Tony Meola, who started every game in goal...Mike WoitallaInterview by Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the USA hosting the 1994 World Cup – a good time to check in with Tony Meola, who started every game in goal for the USA as it reached the second round of a World Cup for the first time since 1930. Meola, who also helped the USA end its 40-year World Cup drought by qualifying for the Italia ‘90, is heavily involved in youth soccer.

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Tony Meola stills spends plenty of time with his 1994 World Cup teammates.

He co-hosts the SiriusXM radio show “Counter Attack” with John Harkes, a fellow Kearny, N.J. product. He has assisted Tab Ramos -- another New Jersey childhood friend -- with the men’s U-20 national team -- and is assisting Hugo Perez with the U.S. U-15 boys.

Meola finishes the radio show at 7 p.m. and by 7:07 he’s on the field coaching New Jersey youth soccer. Up until last year, he had been coaching his son with the Berkeley SA U-16s and he’s still coaching his daughter’s Toms River FC U-14s.

SOCCER AMERICA: How long have you been coaching youth soccer?

TONY MEOLA: I always coached while I was playing. In Kansas City I coached at Blue Valley SC. I really enjoy trying to instill a passion for the game and seeing the kids improve.

SA: I understand your oldest (of three children) is headed to your alma mater Virginia to play baseball …

TONY MEOLA: It just kills me that he’s given up soccer! But it’s a good decision for him.

SA: You played soccer and baseball at UVA …

TONY MEOLA: Right. But times have changed. He played high school soccer last year but this year he has to focus on baseball. UVA is now a top baseball school and this is the time for him where getting drafted is also an issue. So he’s concentrating on baseball. But it’s really tough not to see him play soccer anymore. He’s a Division I-level left-sided player.

TONY MEOLA: The difference between boys and girls -- there’s not a whole lot of difference. But it seems like at the early ages, the boys are hungrier. With the girls, it takes a little bit more time to get them more serious about the game, studying the game, going to games.

The one thing I try and do with all the teams is give them the passion for the game, whether it’s watching it instead of playing a video game on a Saturday morning or going to see a local professional team.

I tell kids all the time that’s how I learned and I think that’s one of the ways you can learn, by engulfing yourself into it.

It’s not for everyone. Some just want to be rec players and I get it. And that makes senses too. That’s also good.

SA: So how do you encourage them to get “study” the game?

TONY MEOLA: When I started coaching my daughter’s team, their team name was something like the Thrill. I said, “We gotta change it to the name of a team that’s in Europe or South America. You guys figure out which one.”

We took a vote. They all asked what teams I watched when I was a kid, so we ended up coming to Milan.

So everyone had to come back with a fact about AC Milan. Each training session early on, I picked girls to give me a fact about AC Milan. They talked about European championships, winning Serie A, about players like Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard … They never knew any of that stuff.

So over the years I ask, does anyone know where Milan is in the standings, anyone see a Milan game last weekend?

And I’d get, “I didn’t see Milan play, but I saw Barcelona play.”

It wasn’t because I wanted them to know everything about Milan, it was just a way to connect them to the soccer world.

SA: Can you compare the youth national program now to when you were a part of it?

TONY MEOLA: My last camp was with the U-15 national team in L.A. Preparation is completely different. The way we schedule out practices … The thought that goes into everything they do comes from Tab [U.S. Soccer’s Youth Technical Director] and trickles down to all the teams. Whether it’s Hugo Perez or Tony Lepore with the U-14s or Richie Williams with the U-17s.

The monitoring of their bodies. Their complete workload everyday. Making sure they don’t exceed workload throughout the week so that when we get to game time they’re optimally ready. Monitoring their diet every minute of the day.

When we put training together, there still things we do now that are the same we did back in 1990. There’s some stuff we didn’t do. I think that would be in any sport, anywhere. You probably don’t work on a typewriter anymore.

The coaches who are working with the national team are constantly looking for the next best thing. "Are we doing it right?" translates to every single drill we do and how we do it, and how long we do it.

I’m not sure it was so thought out back then. It was great back then. And it was probably cutting edge back then. Now it needs to continue to be cutting edge.

SA: For sure, the youth club scene has exploded since you were a kid. Any thoughts on the current youth soccer landscape?

TONY MEOLA: There are a lot of clubs that are great. And other clubs maybe less so. That’s something the parent and the kid have to figure out on their own. “Am I getting what I’m getting what I’m paying for?”

But it’s youth sports, and there are some people you can never please, no matter what you do. You really got to look at the process all the time.

One thing I do know, when I see the young kids -- the pools are a lot bigger and the players are a lot more sophisticated and more knowledgeable than they used to be at the younger ages.]]>
Tab Ramos: 'We're in a great place with room to grow' (Part 1)tag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.3052013-12-31T18:24:27Z2013-12-31T18:38:55ZTab Ramos talks about his expanded role with U.S. Soccer. Interview by Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)...Mike Woitalla
Tab Ramos talks about his expanded role with U.S. Soccer.

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Last month, the U.S. Soccer Federation named Tab Ramos its Youth Technical Director, replacing Claudio Reyna, who left for MLS expansion club New York City FC in May. Ramos, also an assistant to Jurgen Klinsmann with the full national team, will continue as U-20 men's national team head coach. We spoke to Ramos, who in December was selected to the USA’s All-Time National Team Best XI, about his expanded role with the Federation.

SOCCER AMERICA: You were surely a top candidate for an MLS head-coaching job. Why did you opt for U.S. Soccer’s Youth Technical Director position?

TAB RAMOS: I’ve been with the program a long time. 2014 will be my 32nd year of wearing the crest on and off in different ways. For the last six-seven years I’ve been assistant coach to head coach, to helping Jurgen with the first team for the last two years.

I thought I would be the right person to take on the challenge of youth soccer -- having had the experience of coaching at all age groups for the last 10 years [with New Jersey youth club NJSA 04].

There were opportunities of going to MLS but once U.S. Soccer decided that they wanted me in this role and keep head coaching the U-20s, it was a very easy decision. Having Jurgen [Klinsmann] and U.S. Soccer’s support, I would not want to be anywhere else.

SA: What does the position entail …

TAB RAMOS: I work very closely with Jurgen. With Jurgen having a World Cup year, it’s a little more difficult for him to be involved in the day-to-day of the entire program. The youth part of it is a lot easier for me.

Beginning with the youth national teams -- the top priority would be to organize and integrate all the teams as we’ve done with the U-20 national team falling under the senior national team, and with the U-18s, with Javier [Perez] and the U-20 national team. And pass that down to the 17s and 15s and 14s. And decide if we want to make a U-16 team, which currently exists but in some between way, just having some camps, in order to prepare the next U-18 team, which eventually becomes the U-20 cycle.

I’m working closely with Tony Lepore and the Development Academy and see how we can continue to improve the Development Academy and provide resources so it can continue to grow and put more players on the national team. ... And helping out Director of Coaching Education Dave Chesler. … There’s a lot of work to do in my position in general.

SA: How important is it that the various national teams are coached in the same manner and play the same way?

TAB RAMOS: I’m coming into this position where the coaches are already in place. One of the things we don’t want to do in general is tell anyone how to coach. Everybody coaches a little bit differently and at every age group you have different types of talented players, so you can’t possibly play exactly the same.

Now, there’s a certain way that we’ve been doing things for the last maybe year and a half, and one of the things that I did and one of the things that I certainly want to pass down – and what I addressed to the Development Academy coaches -- is that we are looking for players who are comfortable on the ball. It doesn't have to be players who are specifically great in any one position, but players who can adapt to positions because they are comfortable on the ball.

It begins there. The rest of it will be little steps at a time.

But I don’t see it getting to a point where we dictate exactly how everyone has to play. It would be difficult to coach that way because not all the groups are the same.

SA: The last few years have seen an ambitious expansion of the Federation's youth programs, with the Development Academy, Training Centers, Technical Advisors and a network of 100 scouts ...

TAB RAMOS: This is the great thing. Sometimes when somebody is put in the position like mine, most people tend to think they need to immediately try and change everything -- but what’s important is to recognize there have been some great things that have been done.

There have been great things done by Claudio Reyna, including the Curriculum. The Development Academy -- it’s unprecedented worldwide. There’s no one else that does what we do.

I think we’re in a great place. We certainly have a lot of room to grow ... The Development Academy is still relatively new. The organization and what Tony Lepore has done with the Development Academy is unprecedented and we have to continue to provide resources for it to continue to grow and become better and better.

SA: There have been some vehement complaints from clubs that aren’t part of the Academy, particularly that their players are shut out of the national team program or steered to Academy clubs by national team staff ...

TAB RAMOS: Look, all the best players will get a shot at the national team regardless of where they play. I believe that we're very lucky to have the Development Academy because we force them to train a minimum of four days a week. We are managing their game schedule. We’re making sure that they're not playing in too many games and have a good practice-to-game ratio. We're taking care of a lot of the things that are important in general in world soccer.

I think a player who comes to the Development Academy has a great advantage in terms of moving on to the national team because he's already familiar with working under a specific practice plan, a specific periodization within his team. Working basically the same way he’d be working with the national team or a professional team.

I don’t want to say that every single academy in the country is doing a perfect job. And I also don’t want to say that outside the Academy there aren’t coaches who aren’t perfectly capable of running their teams. Or running their teams just like an Academy team would be run.

But for the most part, when you look at numbers in general, the Development Academy is a great place to be. And the best place to be. And we do encourage all the players nationwide to be in an Academy club.

That’s not to say there aren’t some clubs who are also doing a great job and who we would want to consider down the road for being in the Academy.

In Part 2 of our interview, Ramos discusses his work with Jurgen Klinsmann, the high school vs. club controversy, young Americans going abroad, and the 2013 performances of the U.S. U-17 team.

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Brandi Chastain: 'Give power to the players' tag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.3062013-11-15T18:58:43Z2013-12-31T19:00:55ZThe U.S. national team career of Brandi Chastain, most famous for her title-clinching penalty kick at the 1999 Women's World Cup, spanned from 1988 to 2004 and included 1996 and 2004 Olympic gold medals. Her coaching career, at the youth...Mike Woitalla
The U.S. national team career of Brandi Chastain, most famous for her title-clinching penalty kick at the 1999 Women's World Cup, spanned from 1988 to 2004 and included 1996 and 2004 Olympic gold medals. Her coaching career, at the youth level and as assistant coach to her husband, Jerry Smith, at Santa Clara University, began while still an active player.

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SOCCER AMERICA: How different is today’s youth soccer scene from when you were growing up in Northern California.

BRANDI CHASTAIN: [Laughs] It’s a lot different. My youth soccer career began and nearly finished in my neighborhood. This isn’t the case any more for kids. Some travel hours to go to practice. Sometimes they travel out of state to play. They guest play for other teams in different leagues.

It’s very confusing, in my opinion. I don’t even know how youth soccer works any more.

SA: Does your 7-year-old son play soccer?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: He’s been into soccer for six months.

SA: How do you plan on guiding his soccer experience?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: What my husband and I hope for him out of soccer is, one, he enjoys the game, because we’re both invested in it very heavily. And two, that he gains lifelong skills that he needs when he becomes an adult -- teamwork, leadership, resiliency, time management.

Ultimately, I’m big on development. I love practice. I love training. I love trying to get better. That’s been a part of my makeup since I’ve been a little kid. I want to get better every time. I want my son to have the same ambition.

Winning is nice because it makes you feel good. But winning for me is not the ultimate thing.

SA: What advice would you give to coaches of players around your son’s age?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: It’s the advice I give to myself every time I go out to his practice. As an adult, you’ve had lots of experience so there’s a natural tendency to be intense and want it to be “right.” But these are kids.

They don’t have experience. They’ve never done these things before. So you can’t be as intense with them. You can’t be as matter of fact.

I’m guilty of that myself. “Come on, get it right!” And I have to step back and say to myself, “Brandi, he hasn’t had your experience.” So let him make those mistakes and have the fun with his teammates and fool around and be a kid and enjoy it.

Because ultimately if he doesn’t have that fun experience, he’ll walk away from it and that will be a loss for him and me.

SA: How important is it for coaches to consider the changes their players go through during their teen years?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: I think about that all the time because I help coach my husband [Jerry Smith] at Santa Clara University and these are young people. They’re just coming into there older teenage years and they’re trying to figure things out. Coaches have to wear a lot of hats. They’re coaches, they’re psychologists, they’re mentors -- and hopefully they’re role models.

You have to be sensitive to the fact that every single player is different. Every player is in the environment for different reasons. Those are things that we as coaches have to keep in mind and it’s not easy all the time. …

We all have peaks and valleys in emotion and confidence. As coaches what we hope to do is help our players to moderate those emotional peaks and valleys.

You’re going to have some really good games and you’re going to make some mistakes. Mistakes are OK. They’re not going to make or break your soccer career or your life. They’re just bumps in the road and it’s OK.

SA: Would you like to see an increase in female coaches?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: It is important and it’s nice in that girls who come through the game share their experience, of course. It is disappointing when I’m at a 20-field complex and I see 40 male coaches coaching girls.

But I’ve had men coaches and women coaches, and for me I want the best coach. I also want aspiring female coaches to know there are places for them and I also want young girls to know that women can also be coaches.

SA: Are you satisfied with the progress of the girls and women’s game in the USA?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: We were just knocked out of qualification for the U-17 World Cup, which is very, very disappointing and I’m sure U.S. Soccer is not happy about that.

We have the biggest population of girls playing soccer in the world. We should be able find, train or create successful teams just because of that statistic.

But what we don’t have that other countries have is tradition in men’s soccer that these young players can watch and grow up with, although I think MLS is helping us with that.

But also, the style of soccer we want to play in this country needs to maybe honed in and focused on.

SA: What is the style of soccer you think is optimal and will bring the most success?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: Value the ball more. Value possession of the ball. More like Barcelona -- meaning player movement on and off the ball. Small passes to keep possession. Every player needs to be confident and comfortable on the ball.

Just being more athletic and physical doesn’t win you the game …

SA: But athletic and physical does win at the younger ages – and puts players on a path to a style that won’t be successful at the older ages …

BRANDI CHASTAIN: Exactly. That I think is why some kids fall off. They don’t have the skills necessary at the higher levels for their enjoyment. They lose that love for the game because it becomes very difficult. If you don’t have that skill it becomes frustrating.

SA: What advice to you have for young players striving to succeed at the higher levels?

BRANDI CHASTAIN: I tell this to all players: The most important thing is to understand you are in charge of where you’re going. You have to change and impact how you perform.

The coach is going to give you the information and help you direct how to train your skills. But that 1 hour and 30 minutes on Tuesday and that 1 hour and 30 minutes on Thursday will only get you so far.

What do you do outside of that time? Do you watch soccer? Do you take the ball and juggle on your driveway? When you go to practice are you focused on getting a quality 90 minutes in that training or does it take you 25 minutes to stop talking to your friends and talking about what happened that day before you focus on what you’re doing?

I like to empower the players: “I’m here to facilitate your development. But you are in charge of it. I want to give you that power.”

Sometimes kids feel that coaches have the power when I think the players have the power to get better.

(Brandi Chastain serves as women’s soccer ambassador for the Capital One Cup, which awards $400,000 in student-athlete scholarships annually and can be followed on Facebook and Twitter.)]]>
Aiming to Bridge Gap Between the Haves and Have-Notstag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.3042013-09-21T08:15:08Z2013-10-31T08:17:59ZNorCal President Benjamin Ziemer has launched a Club Outreach Project to aid clubs -- most of which serve Latino youth -- that struggle to meet the demands of the modern American youth soccer structure. Interview by Mike Woitalla (from Soccer...Mike Woitalla
NorCal President Benjamin Ziemer has launched a Club Outreach Project to aid clubs -- most of which serve Latino youth -- that struggle to meet the demands of the modern American youth soccer structure.

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The NorCal Premier League, with nearly 200 Northern California clubs, covers an area that's larger than England and has one of the world's most ethnically and economically diverse populations. NorCal clubs range from those with million dollar budgets to ones that depend solely on volunteer staff.

NorCal President Benjamin Ziemer has launched a Club Outreach Project to aid clubs -- most of which serve Latino youth -- that struggle to meet the demands of the modern American youth soccer structure.

Ziemer assigned Nick Lusson, the Technical Director of the Dublin United Soccer League and assistant coach of Cal State East Bay’s men’s and women’s teams, to head the project.

SOCCER AMERICA: What are the main challenges faced by the clubs targeted by the Club Outreach Project?

NICK LUSSON: Most of these are low-income communities. Most are Hispanic clubs. They don’t have a big volunteer base. They don’t have a lot of finances. They don’t have the level of relationship with their cities for field access.

Most all of them are volunteer-run, with volunteer coaches -- volunteers across the board.

Those organizations are put in the same mix, the same league with clubs that have a full-time director and assistant director, staff coaches, full-time paid administrators -- tons of money and tons of volunteer support, and their cities love them. There’s this have and have-not dynamic.

It creates a lot of tension and that’s the challenge of a lot of these clubs. They’re put in the same league with these other clubs and held to the same standards, but lacking the resources and ability to really be able to match them.

SA: So NorCal was concerned it would lose clubs from low-income areas?

NICK LUSSON: Yes, that’s what caused Benjamin Ziemer to get this prioritized as a project.

We don’t want to lose these clubs from our environment. I think they’re critical to the experience in the quality of play. We have to have this diversity.

Hayward Youth Soccer Club is a perfect example. It’s one of the clubs we’re working with. Hayward had two boys who made the national team pool. They’ve got some teams that are phenomenal.

We sat down with them. I said look, “If I put my teams on the field against your teams, your teams are going to smash us, everyday of the week.” They have some incredible players. But the club struggles with their paperwork and administrative stuff. There are these constant issues of fields, and referees and parent conduct. All these issues.

SA: What’s the strategy of the Outreach Program?

NICK LUSSON: First of all, I think it's important to point out that the clubs that are being helped out in this program are being run by some incredibly passionate and dedicated people.

You have a few volunteers trying to do all the 1,001 jobs that the bigger, more established clubs have an army of paid administrators and professional DOC's doing for them.

I've really been impressed by the intentions and dedication of these people to give so much to the game, and even more so as they then get criticized pretty heavily for the tasks that fall through -- like not having adequate fields, missing paperwork, or not responding to e-mails on time. Part of our purpose in the project is to provide some resources and guidance to these individuals to help them be more successful and sustainable in their roles.

SA: How is the project progressing?

NICK LUSSON: I’ve got two people working with me who both have experience as DOCs doing all the legwork: Andrew Ziemer and Omar Cervantes.

A lot of it right now is us meeting with them and really understanding their challenges first. There’s a natural thing that you’ll assume what other people’s problems are before you actually listen to them. It’s become a reminder of that. We’re hearing first-hand from the clubs what they already have in place and what they don’t have.

A lot of them spend each day just treading water to keep things running today and not really planning for improvements going forward.

We want to help create plans for the club that can be passed on to the next person so it’s not all dependent on this one guy or these two people. A lot of them work that way, so if one guy leaves tomorrow, that whole club falls apart, because there’s no plan of succession. Nothing’s written down.

SA: How can you help the clubs with the administrative challenges?

NICK LUSSON: We’re putting together a drop-box of club resources. We’re pulling examples from a lot of clubs. Sample agendas. Sample curriculums. Bi-laws. Budgets. Presenting them with tools. You can take these and apply them, tweak them to your club’s needs. So they don’t have to reinvent the wheel on that stuff.

We want to help them to develop tools. The general sense is the “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for one day, teach him how to fish and he’ll …” We’re not coming in to fix your problems. We want to help you get to a place where you can fix your own.

Some of the ways we want to help are with things like how to file for non-profit status, board structure and volunteer outreach, web site management.

SA: Fields must be a big issue in lower-income areas ...

NICK LUSSON: One thing I’m investigating is the U.S. Soccer Foundation’s field grants. It’d be tough for anyone of these clubs to independently pursue this. But can we, as a state association, bring in a grant writer to work with all these organizations? If we got one person working for all these clubs I think it could work pretty well.

SA: How much of an issue is the divide between the richer, mainly white, clubs and the lower-income, mainly Latino clubs?

NICK LUSSON: There are some cultural issues as well. They became a whole big piece in a lot of these conversations.

You basically have suburban upper middle-class clubs complaining about the conditions and the experiences playing at the inner city or low-income community clubs. And we’re getting stories from the other side of just outright racist conduct, behavior and attitude. It does cut both ways.

SA: I have heard referees claim that sideline behavior of adults is worse from low-income community clubs. I’ve also heard club coaches from low-income areas lament the fact that teams from richer areas don’t want to play on their fields -- the only fields they have and on which their own children play on daily …

NICK LUSSON: There are cultural and socio-economic dynamics going on here. That's been an intriguing conversation going on with these clubs that was an unintended facet of this undertaking. Both sides -- the middle- and upper-class suburban clubs and the low-income community clubs -- have some valid points here.

It's clear to me from just this short amount of time spent with both sides that all parties need to do a better job to bridge this gap.]]>
Body Language Lessons from Klinsmann et al.tag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.3032013-09-18T05:30:29Z2013-09-18T05:32:52ZBy Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider) A few years ago I arrived at soccer practice in a bad mood for reasons I don't recall. The giggly girls hardly hit a decent pass during the warm-up rondos and...Mike WoitallaBy Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

A few years ago I arrived at soccer practice in a bad mood for reasons I don't recall. The giggly girls hardly hit a decent pass during the warm-up rondos and I started barking.

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That didn’t work so I figured, OK, let them goof around for a couple minutes while I calm down and set up stuff. I looked around the four-field park at which about 10 teams were practicing. About 40 yards away I noticed Coach T with his U-10s boys, and something struck me: He’s really enjoying himself -- and the boys looked sharp and like they were having fun during their exercise.

How did I know Coach T was in a good mood? Did I detect a smile from that far away? I’m not sure, but there must have been something -- and I got to thinking a lot about body language and its influence on others.

At my daughter’s elementary school, the morning started when the bell rang and each class lined up at markers on the vast blacktop. The teachers would come out to meet their classes and lead them inside. Many of them came out with a smile, but I recall one who nearly always approached her students with a sour look. It’s hard to imagine the children wouldn’t infer that she didn’t look forward to a day in the classroom with them. Surely that would affect the attitude in which they approached learning?

It reminded me of advice I once got from a coach (I wish I remembered who it was) who said that when the players arrive at practice or a game, greet them like you’re happy to see them. It sets the right tone.

If you watch the U.S. national team, you’ll surely notice Jurgen Klinsmann’s positive body language. TV shots before Tuesday’s big win over Mexico showed him walking around the team warming up with a big smile. I was at his practice at Azteca Stadium the day before the tie in March in Mexico. They kept the media at least 60 yards away from the training, but even at that distance one got the sense that this was a confident coach who enjoyed his job -- and even, I would say, that he had genuine affection for his players. This is also noticeable in the way he greets them when they depart the field after a substitution.

Noteworthy too are the sideline shots of Klinsmann when things aren’t going well for his team. For sure, he may grimace about a ref’s decision off and on, but his look of confidence generally remains steady even when the team is struggling. That has to be reassuring to his players if they glance toward the sideline.

Pia Sundhage guided the USA to two Olympic gold medals during her 2008-12 stint as head coach and provided a marvelous example of body language that I’m sure contributed to the team’s success. During dramatic comeback wins over Canada and France, when the USA looked endanger of elimination, sidelines shots always showed an unfazed Sundhage. Indeed, she always looked like she was enjoying herself at the field.

When I asked her about it, she said, “I’m really happy to hear that when you watch the women’s team play you think I’m calm, because that's what I want my players to believe -- because I have faith in the way we play and in our players. I emphasize the good things. I’m looking for good things, instead of doing the opposite and try constantly to adjust mistakes.”

I’m not sure how much time is spent during coaches courses on body language -- or even how teachable a concept it is. But it seems that if coaches are enjoying themselves they’re most likely to send the messages to players that bring out the best in them.

“Even at the highest level, it should be fun,” Sundhage says. “Soccer is the best sport in the world and if it’s not fun it’s not worthwhile to coach.”]]>
Winning's not everything: How to convince parents tag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.3002013-08-01T09:27:20Z2013-08-08T09:29:53ZBy Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider) Coaching young players to increase their chances of excelling at the higher levels can often mean losing games. So how can coaches convince parents not to confuse scorelines with player development...Mike WoitallaBy Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

Coaching young players to increase their chances of excelling at the higher levels can often mean losing games. So how can coaches convince parents not to confuse scorelines with player development progress? Here are a couple of methods that can help coaches show parents how to look for improvement without focusing on wins and losses:

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A “Parent Pregame” is how U.S. Soccer Director of Coaching Education Dave Chesler addressed the issue during his long career of youth coaching.

“When I was directing clubs, I expected all the coaches to do it, and it was awkward for them at first,” says Chesler. “When the referee is checking equipment and checking in the players, I would gather our parents around and I would give them the Parent Pregame. Very simple things. …

“I’d review the major topics we’ve covered … ‘This week we worked on trying to pass shorter, play it out from the goalkeeper, and build the game from back -- because ultimately that’s good for their development as they get older. And it includes everyone in the game. They’re all participating -- the people defending, from the people in midfield, etc.'"

The parents now understood why the team might give up goals -- because they’re trying to learn to play in a manner that’s the most successful at the highest levels.

“It’s not always warm and fuzzy,” Chesler says. “There’s always the parent who thinks they know more. At least, you’ve taken away the guesswork and provided them with something they can grasp onto and really focus their emotion and energy toward.

“I’d provide them with tools to encourage the kids. ‘When the goalkeeper has the ball, and you see the goalkeeper try and pass or play to one of those defenders, it would be great if you would encourage them because that’s exactly what we worked on.’”

With older teams -- 13s, 14s -- Chesler made a habit of handing out a target sheet to the players at the end of the last training before a match. He’d give parents a copy so they knew exactly what the targets were for the game. It’d be a very concise summary of what the team had worked on in training.

“There was information provided for the parents every game,” he says. “Not for them to discuss or debate from a technical standpoint, but just to support their kids.

“If you don’t do that, you leave it completely open-ended and now the atmosphere is such that a parent can make assumptions and really be critical of things that aren’t even relevant to what you’re trying to do.”

With younger players, the targets would be mostly technical.

“When I coached a 9-year-old team, it would be, for example, work on how to prepare the ball,” he says. “We’re going to try and prepare it so we keep it moving, so we don’t just stop it or kill it. I felt it was important to distinguish between trapping and redirecting -- a higher level skill, more challenging.”

When a young player starts acquiring the skills of a good first touch that sets up her next move, it’s a major sign of progress. When parents see their children succeeding more frequently at that during a game, they realize the coach has helped the players improve even when the scores favor the opponent.

With older players, the targets could be more tactical, like group defending.

For Chesler, the Parent Pregame is part of a triad that keeps a youth team on track: “I call it PCP -- Parent-Coach-Player all being connected.”

One of the recommendations from Stan Baker in his book, “Our Competition is the World,” for helping parents comprehend a team’s long-term development philosophy is creating a stat sheet to gauge the team’s definition of success.

The idea is to track accomplishments by jotting down how many times the team accomplishes goals such as:

* Plays out of the back successfully. * Plays through the lines (backs to midfield). * Has a sequence of 7 passes. * Changes point of attack. * Creates 2v1 situations. * Crosses the ball from the endline. * Chances created.* Goals scored.

“I recommend the stat duty is assigned to various parents each game for monitoring,” Baker writes. “Buy a few of the small clipboards and you’ll be ready to go. This will be a shared assignment so all parents get a chance to take part. … Shifting the focus from winning onto the various aspects of the game that you are trying to improve on will help redefine success.”

"The yells and insults from the sideline from the parents make kids more violent.”

-- Utah referee Pedro Lopez, the brother-in-law of 46-year-old refereeRicardo Portillo, who died last week after being punched by a 17-year-old goalkeeper.

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In addition to working as an editor of Soccer America my whole adult life, I have been a player, fan, referee, youth coach and soccer dad. I love the sport. I even like the smell of my daughter’s shinguards, which my wife wants left on the porch. (Apparently I suffer from Proustian Phenomenon).

During the last decade I’ve grown even fonder of soccer because I’ve been involved in the youth game. Watching youngsters explore the joys of the sport is simply delightful and makes one appreciate soccer even more when watching it played brilliantly at the highest levels.

But there’s something about soccer -- all sports, in fact -- that I loathe. And it’s that, for some reason, it brings out behavior in adults that would not be tolerated in any other setting.

At the professional level, coaches wearing suits on the sideline throw tantrums that would embarrass a toddler’s parents. Adult fans sitting next to children in a stadium yell obscenities at the top of their lungs. (Just one example that really bothered me recently: In Azteca Stadium in March -- you probably heard this yourself if you watched it on TV – tens of thousands of fans chanting a horribly offensive slur at Brad Guzan each time he took a goal kick.)

But worst of all are the adults screaming from the sidelines at youth games. Whether it’s the coaches or the parents -- what on earth makes otherwise civilized people believe that it’s acceptable to invade children’s playtime in such a way?

One can’t imagine an adult screaming at children on a playground but this is tolerated when they’re playing soccer. If you think your kid unfairly got a bad grade, you might discuss it with the teacher -- but come into the classroom screaming and you may just get arrested. Yet usually well-mannered adults go raving mad at referees in front of children.

I watch many, many games, from youngsters in the park to the very top level with the world’s best referees. And I have discovered that the frequency at which referees make incorrect or questionable calls averages out about the same per game at every level. Why in the world would you expect a referee -- very often a teenager -- at the youth level to whistle a perfect game when the refs of the EPL, the World Cup, MLS, etc., can’t pull it off?

Besides, criticism from the parents and coaches is usually so biased, plus they’re generally not in a good spot to see the incident, that it’s very often wrong.

Our league, NorCal, has quite rightly called for a minute of silence before all the games this weekend.

I say, for the adults, let’s stay silent the entire game, every weekend. Sit back, relax, and relish the sights and sounds of children playing a wonderful sport. You'll find it's more enjoyable for everyone when there's no screaming.

(Mike Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, coaches youth soccer for East Bay United/Bay Oaks in Oakland, Calif. He is the co-author, with Tim Mulqueen, of The Complete Soccer Goalkeeper. Woitalla's youth soccer articles are archived at YouthSoccerFun.com.)]]>
'Patience is crucial for coaches' (Q&A with Red Bulls' Bob Montgomery, Part 2) tag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.3012013-05-11T05:19:00Z2013-09-18T05:24:39ZIn Part 2 of our interview with the Bob Montgomery we asked the New York Red Bulls' Director of Youth Programs about the clubs' coaching philosophy, its structure and the challenges of producing pros for the first team. By Mike...Mike Woitalla
In Part 2 of our interview with the Bob Montgomery we asked the New York Red Bulls' Director of Youth Programs about the clubs' coaching philosophy, its structure and the challenges of producing pros
for the first team.

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The Red Bulls, which last year had more than 20 players called up to a U.S. youth national team, were rated Soccer America’s top 2012 boys youth club – the first time an MLS club claimed No. 1 since the rankings’ inception 10 years ago.

SA: What do you look for in coaches at different age groups?

BOB MONTGOMERY: One of our coaches is a pretty interesting guy -- Manny Schellscheidt [who four decades ago became the USSF’s first A licensed coach, has coached at all levels of the U.S. national team program and has won national titles at the youth, pro and amateur levels].

I’ve worked with Manny for years and one of the things we’ve always said is:

You’ve got to have people who are good with kids, who have patience. One of the points he always makes is, if you treat each child as if he was your own, then you probably won’t make mistakes.

You don’t need these coaches who are concerned with winning and losing and their record. They have to be patient and they have to be teachers. It’s not about winning championships.

Kids growing up, they’re supposed to develop. There has to be a fun part of it. It’s not work. If you make it work, you’re going to turn them off. ...

You’ve got to find the age-appropriate coaches. A U-16 coach … maybe he would be a good U-12 coach, but maybe he wouldn’t.

When you’ve raised kids you know you have to be patient and continue to teach them. Some young coaches come in and they’ll explain something once and they’re frustrated that’s it’s not picked up. Well, if you’ve had kids then you know you’ve probably told them 700 times they have to put their shoes back in their room, and don’t leave them in the living room, before it finally clicks in. That’s parenting and teaching and coaching.

SA: Do you have a policy about sideline coaching during games?

BOB MONTGOMERY: Coaching during the game happens at every level -- it’s just a matter of doing it at the right time and the right place, and not over-coach.

The philosophy is that you’re teaching and training during the week, and the weekend, the game, is the exam. Like school, you study all week, and then you have an exam.

Our goal is to create players who can make their own decisions. So we don’t have our coaches yelling directions all the time.

There are some things, like a coach talking to a central defender, or a holding midfielder, because something needs to be changed. But we don’t want non-stop chatter. That’s completely ineffective. By the time you finish telling a kid something, the play’s over. They need to make that decision on their own. They need to read the game.

Instead of yelling at the left back, the better way is maybe let him get burned. Let the other team take advantage. Then later on ask him what happened. ... “My position wasn’t good.” ...

SA: Do you urge your coaches to sit down during games?

BOB MONTGOMERY: They should be at the bench, whether they’re sitting or standing there. But patrolling the sidelines and constantly yelling is something we don’t want.

Sometimes it’s nervous energy. I had one of my coaches like that the other day, and I spoke to him afterward, “You know you’re commenting a lot on plays. What you’re trying to do is put a band-aid on something. At times we need to let the guys fail, because they’ll learn from that.”

He kind of disagreed, and then he reviewed the videotape of the game -- the camera was right by the bench -- and sent me a text, “I watched the video and I was talking too much, too many play-by-plays.”

When you’re involved in a game, almost like a player, sometimes you don’t realize it. It’s nervous energy. I’ve seen coaches who cuss too much. And if you say something -- “Watch your language.” They say, “What do you mean? I didn’t curse.” If you have video, it helps.

SA: What age do players come under your umbrella?

BOB MONTGOMERY: The Academy we start at U-13. But we have the training programs for the local community -- 7 to 14, boys and girls -- then we have we have what’s called an RDS Program, which is select programs. Those programs we do charge for. That’s a division of Red Bulls Training Programs, and that is a profit center. Our Academy teams are fully funded.

The RDS will bring in the best kids from the area, almost like a state or regional team, and the best kids train one night a week together. An additional training and they do technical training and small-sided. And they work with the better players. Many of them enter our Academy teams.

At the Academy level, we have U-13, U-14, U-15, U-16, U-18, and the college players can come back if they’re invited and play in the NPSL U-23.

SA: You’ve said that one of the challenges of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy programs is doing a better job at getting involved in the grassroots, at the 8- to 12-year-old level ...

BOB MONTGOMERY: When we get 13-year-olds, we’re starting with players who have a number of bad habits because they haven’t learned to work in small units, the building blocks. How do you play 3-v-2? They don’t understand a whole lot of that.

The fact is they still come out of youth soccer that still is so many games, so many tournaments, so much winning-at-all costs mentality – those are the players coming in to our Academy.

We find that at U-13, U-14, U-15 level, there’s a lot of retraining, trying to break bad habits, it’s much easier to establish good habits and teach good decision-making than to try and reverse them.]]>
USA's No. 1 club aims to produce more pros (Q&A: Red Bulls' Bob Montgomery, Part 1)tag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.2992013-05-03T09:32:06Z2013-07-03T09:34:06ZInterview by Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider) The New York Red Bulls, which last year had more than 20 players called up to a U.S. youth national team, were rated Soccer America's top 2012 boys youth club...Mike Woitalla
Interview by Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

The New York Red Bulls, which last year had more than 20 players called up to a U.S. youth national team, were rated Soccer America's top 2012 boys youth club -- the first time an MLS club claimed No. 1 since the rankings’ inception 10 years ago. In Part 1 of our interview with the Red Bulls' Director of Youth Programs Bob Montgomery we spoke about the club's quest to produce pro players, the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, and the impact of pro teams on the youth soccer landscape.

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SOCCER AMERICA: The Red Bulls (nés MetroStars) were one of the first MLS clubs to launch an ambitious youth program. How would you assess its progress?

BOB MONTGOMERY: I think it’s going very well. When I came on board five years ago is when we decided to have a fully funded academy and to model it similar to European model, where the focus is on player development. Now the clubs in the area and people in the area are now recognizing that we are the best place to be for player development.

One of the attractions is that it’s completely cost-free. We have six teams, five in the regular season, and we bring our college players back and play in the NPSL so we can keep track of them and see how they’re progressing.

We’ve had seven players sign with the first team and we’ve had numerous players over the last few years who have been selected to U.S. national teams.

SA: The Red Bulls won the U.S. Development Academy’s U-15/16 title in 2012. How important are results?

BOB MONTGOMERY: Wins and losses -- we do win. Our teams are successful, but the emphasis has to be on individual player development.

It’s important in developing pro players that you want people who want to compete, who want to win. That’s a trait that’s very evident in professional athletes -- the desire to win and to work hard. Our job is to just make sure they do it in what we feel is developmental and with proper soccer. So we’re not looking to just play long and over the top and get athletes to run on to it. Because we all know that down the road there’s always someone just as big and strong as you, and if you don’t have a brain and you don’t have the technical ability, it’s not going to work.

SA: MLS’s investment in youth programs is substantial -- Commissioner Don Garber says it’s about $20 million league-wide annually. How does a club measure that the investment is paying off?

BOB MONTGOMERY: You judge yourself on who truly goes to the first team. But if we look around the world, it’s a pyramid and only the very best actually move on and will play in the first team.

When I came on board, they told me a good number is if you have a player every other a year -- a player who truly makes it.

We have academy players come through the system, or coming back from college, and are around for one, two, three years and are released. I’m talking about guys who come through your club, the homegrown guys, who become contributing players who play for your club for eight, nine, 10 years. That’s what we’re trying to develop.

It’s not necessarily a Lionel Messi or Thierry Henry, a star player, it’s about a guy who is a good club person who comes from within and contributes over 10 years. Those people are very valuable. If Connor Lade can play for Red Bull and have a career for 10 years, then we’ve done our job.

SA: What’s your opinion on the impact of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, which the Red Bulls have been part of since its launch in 2007?

BOB MONTGOMERY: The Academy is in its infancy. What I would say for U.S. Soccer and its Academy program and youth development in general – is we started in the middle and now we’re working our way down.

We need to do a better job and get involved in the grassroots. True development of players is going to occur between 8 and 12 years of age. We need to find a way to impact that.

We do it in the training program where coaches go out and work in the community. They do summer camps, but it’s not full-time … we can go and can teach and we can recommend, but it’s up to them to adopt the policies, procedures and the development programs that we think is best.

Quite honestly, across the country, I have heard, you have heard, and everybody else has talked about it for the past 25 years -- that with young players you should play in small numbers. We should be playing 5-side at certain ages, and 7-a-side and up to 8-a-side, then at 12 or 13, move to 11-side competition, because it’s a process that they need to go through.

If you look around the country, we’ve got U-12 national championships, all these tournaments, and we’ve got 7-, 8-, 9- year-olds playing on huge fields, adult fields, and playing 11-side, and it doesn’t make sense.

SA: There seems to be a good amount of strife between Academy clubs and non-Academy clubs, and pro clubs and independent clubs that begrudge MLS clubs having an advantage in that they fully fund the Academy teams …

BOB MONTGOMERY: I think there’s issues with some clubs. They think they should keep the players and they don’t want to allow them to come. … But right now I think it’s working well for us. We have a good relationship with most clubs in our area and the coaching staffs. Many of them understand when their kids want to come. …

Why come to Red Bull? What’s the difference at Red Bull? Our U-16, our U-18 players are getting into training sessions with our first team. They’re playing in reserve games. We’re averaging four players for each reserve game. Those are the advantages of playing with an MLS club.

Some clubs understand it. Some clubs still feel they’re our major competitor. Down the road, I don’t how many years – 3, 4, 5 or 10 -- I think eventually MLS should have their own leagues with people that are doing things the same way, funding their programs, developing their players. That way we have control of how we do things.

But for now it’s not a major problem.]]>
MLS Stars: When They Were Childrentag:www.youthsoccerfun.com,2013://1.2982013-05-01T09:29:51Z2013-07-03T09:31:51ZBy Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider) One of the more enjoyable parts of interviewing pros is hearing anecdotes from their youth soccer days. Here are some from this season's MLS stars in the Youth Soccer Insider's latest...Mike Woitalla
By Mike Woitalla (from Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

One of the more enjoyable parts of interviewing pros is hearing anecdotes from their youth soccer days. Here are some from this season's MLS stars in the Youth Soccer Insider's latest edition of "When They Were Children."

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DARLINGTON NAGBE (Portland Timbers) Born in Liberia, Nagbe moved to Ohio with his mother at age 11 after living in France, Switzerland and Greece, where his father played pro soccer.

In Ohio, where the winters are so cold, it meant lots of indoor soccer -- in gyms and in the house.

“I liked to play with a mini-ball and a regular soccer ball,” says the 22-year-old Nagbe. “Did I break things in the house? Yeah, a lot. ... What did I break? ... I can’t say because my mom doesn’t know about it. SuperGlue works pretty well.”

SEAN JOHNSON (Chicago Fire) The 23-year-old who’s currently No. 3 on the U.S. national team goalkeeper depth chart, grew up in Georgia, the child of Jamaican immigrants. Johnson loved soccer just like his dad, a semipro player, and tried to emulate the way Thierry Henry scored goals.

Now Johnson tries to keep Henry and other MLS stars from succeeding because at age 12 he became a goalkeeper while his Atlanta Fire was in Jamaica for a youth tournament.

“I was 12 years old when we went to a tournament and our goalkeeper got hurt,” Johnson says. “Our coach asked everyone if they could step in, but I was the only one who agreed to give it a shot. It kind of became permanent after that.”

Johnson still played some in the field – he was a high scorer in high school – but he had fallen in love with the position: “The excitement. The adrenaline rush …”

NICK RIMANDO (Real Salt Lake)The 33-year-old, now in his 14th MLS season, got his start in goal much like Johnson. Rimando’s goalkeeping career started at age 10 when his team’s regular keeper suffered an injury.

“I don’t remember if we won or lost the game,” Rimando says. “I must have done pretty well because my coach kept me at goalkeeper. What I do remember is I fell in love with the position that day. I got to wear a different color jersey and use my hands – and that made me feel like a special player.”

Rimando started playing competitive ball with Upland Celtic but didn’t have much goalkeeper training early on.

“The father of a teammate I car-pooled with used to be a hockey player,” Rimando remembers. “He’d teach me stuff about playing the angles that he knew from hockey. Later on, I went to some goalkeeper camps.”

With Alta Loma Arsenal, he played alongside future national team captain Carlos Bocanegra. But when then-UCLA coach Sigi Schmid first scouted him at a high school game, Rimando was playing forward.

“Sigi got a laugh out of that,” said Rimando. “But he came back to see me with my club, where I played goalkeeper.”

Rimando went pro after his junior season at UCLA.

LUIS SILVA (Toronto FC) In Silva’s case, he went from goalkeeper to field player.

“I started playing soccer when the 1994 World Cup was going on,” says Silva, who was born and raised in Los Angeles. “There was soccer fever. I played with neighborhood friends."

Then 5 years old, Silva admired Mexican goalkeeper Jorge Campos, famous for his ventures outside the penalty area, his ability to play forward, and his colorful jerseys.

“Kicking the ball around with friends, they just started taking shots at me and I guess I was good at blocking shots,” Silva remembers. “I liked it. Jorge Campos was my idol. I liked him a lot. A lot of kids liked him. I tried to be like him. I got the nickname – they used to call me 'Campos.'”

The big change came when he was 10 years old.

“We were down 1-0 in a game, and my coach put in another goalkeeper in the second half and put me in the field, in midfield,” Silva says. “We had a free kick. One of my teammates took it, and I scored on a header. I scored!

“After that, the coach would have me play goalkeeper one half and in the field, as midfielder or forward, in the other half.”

JUAN AGUDELO (Chivas USA) The 20-year-old is one of the USA’s most promising young strikers, but he started out in the back.

“I played center back because I used to be really chubby when I was little,” says Agudelo, now 6-foot-1 and 183 pounds.

At age 8, Agudelo moved to the USA from Colombia, where he played plenty of street soccer.

“I used to always play after school in the street,” he said. “Right away we’d borrow somebody’s shoes or something to make goals in the street and just play for like four hours. Sometimes we’d have to get out of the way when cars came through, but it wasn’t a busy street.”

But Agudelo didn’t have great hopes of being a star when he was very young.

“I didn’t think I was that good at the sport,” Agudelo says. “I thought it was too much running for me because I was really chubby. … [But] I started loving it. Once I started getting pretty good I got attached and started watching a bunch of games and trying to improve myself.”

Fernando Gallego, his youth coach at New Jersey’s PASCO said: “When he was 10, 11, 12 -- he used to practice for hours with other kids doing moves, and this and that. What made him so technically good was playing so much with the ball and working on technical skills.”]]>